Friday, Jan 30th
Last update10:16:32 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
A United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday that Israel's massive military assault on densely populated Gaza appeared to constitute a grave war crime.The government yesterday bowed to growing pressure over allegations of Britain's complicity in torture by promising to draw up and publish new guidelines for the security and intelligence agencies when they are involved in interrogating detainees abroad.
Announcing the unexpected move to MPs, Gordon Brown said he condemned torture "absolutely" but had asked the intelligence and security committee (ISC) to help draw up new guidelines "in order to have systems that are robust".
CIA interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda suspects "constituted torture", according to a leaked report by the international Red Cross.
The findings were based on testimonies by 14 so-called "high-value" detainees who were held in secret CIA prisons.
We think time and elections will cleanse our fallen world but they will not. Since November, George W. Bush and his administration have seemed to be rushing away from us at accelerating speed, a dark comet hurtling toward the ends of the universe.
Anyone departing the UK by land, sea or air will have their trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade.
Passengers leaving every international sea port, station or airport will have to supply detailed personal information as well as their travel plans.
The owners of light aircraft will also be brought under the system, known as e-borders, which will eventually track 250 million journeys annually.
I invited Abdullah Almalki to breakfast in Ottawa but he only took coffee. And while I wolfed down my all-English breakfast in the Chateau Laurier Hotel (beloved of Churchill and Karsh of Ottawa fame), he sipped gingerly at his cup with much on his mind. Snooped on by the Canadian secret service and then tortured in Syria while the Canadian authorities did nothing for him – save supplying his perverted torturers with questions – he had much to think about. A carbon copy of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who had his penis cut up while the Brits sent questions to his perverted Moroccan torturers.
In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys – that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.
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